For this unique event in 2025, Labor Neunzehn and AVARIE are delighted to invite Christine Gedeon, a visual artist born in Aleppo and raised in the U.S., now working between New York and Berlin. Gedeon’s practice moves between drawing, mapping, and experimental film, engaging with themes of memory, loss, and erasure, often through a process that intersects art, personal archives, and investigative research. From Wednesday, 3 to Sunday, 7 December, we will screen A Portrait of Michel, a video work tracing the disappearance of the artist’s uncle, abducted by the Hafez al-Assad regime in Damascus in 1978 and never seen again. Using the few belongings found in a pouch in Beirut — documents, objects, and scattered papers — along with family testimonies and material gathered in Toulouse, Gedeon reconstructs an elusive portrait that invites the viewer to piece together what might have happened. The narrative is punctuated by 8mm footage of family gatherings from 1946, evoking a moment of joy before later tragedies.
The opening night is enriched by a public conversation between the artist and Syrian novelist Nihad Sirees — an essential literary voice whose work spans political, historical, and social reflections on Syria, and who has lived in exile since 2012.
Thursday, 4 – Sunday, 7 December, 2025 | 2-6 pm
Wednesday, 3 December, 2025, from 6 pm
Exhibition opening and launch of KAMERA CAHIER N° 11, from 6 pm
Film screening and artist talk: Christine Gedeon in conversation with Syrian novelist Nihad Sirees, 7:30 pm
ADMISSION WITH DONATION
WAYS TO SUPPORT > HERE
WHERE:
Labor Neunzehn
Kiefholzstr. 19/20
12435 Berlin
The Labor Neunzehn can be accessed through the courtyard. The main entrance of Labor Neunzehn is on the 4th floor of the building and is only accessible via stairs. There is no elevator. Please send us a message at our email address if you need more information or assistance before your visit.
Program Overview (Full Version) kamera-n°11
Updates @laborneunzehn | @avarie.publishing | @christine.gedeon | FB event
BIO CHRISTINE GEDEON
Christine Gedeon is a visual artist, born in Aleppo and raised in the U.S., who lives and works between Berlin and New York. Since the start of the war in Syria, her work has focused on her family history in Aleppo before the civil war, across various mediums: video, sound installation, and works on paper and canvas.
Gedeon’s work has been exhibited in galleries and institutions worldwide. She has received grants and fellowships from Stiftung Kunstfonds, the Berlin Cultural Senate, The Harpo Foundation, and the Bronx Museum in New York. Her work has been featured in Art in America, Hyperallergic, The Dallas Morning News, and in the book You Are Here: Mapping the Soul of the City by Katharine Harmon. Her artist book Aleppo: Deconstruction | Reconstruction was published by Kerber Verlag in 2020.
christinegedeon.com
BIO NIHAD SIREES
Nihad Sirees, born in Aleppo in 1950, is a Syrian civil engineer and acclaimed novelist known for his narrative realism. The author of seven novels, as well as plays and television series, he explores political, historical, and social themes related to Syria. His novel The North Winds is considered one of the most important historical works in Syrian literature, while his novel The Silence and the Roar, banned in Syria, has been translated into several languages. Renowned also for the innovative TV series The Silk Market, he helped bring the environment and culture of Aleppo to the screen. Branded an opponent of the Syrian government, he left Syria in 2012 and now lives in Berlin.
nihadsiris.com
This single edition is entirely self-produced, and audience support is essential to keep KAMERA alive in a year without public funding. Thank you!
WAY TO SUPPORT > HERE
KAMERA is a series curated by Labor Neunzehn and AVARIE
img: 1. 2. 3. A Portrait of Michel, 2024 © Christine Gedeon